For years, some have been saying that the real problem holding back the music industry from embracing digital distribution hasn’t been the record labels so much as the record stores. In fact, in the Rolling Stone article about the suicide of the recording industry, one of the key stumbling blocks was that the music retailers threatened the record labels if they embraced digital distribution such as Napster. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that music retailers are spitting mad over Prince’s plans to give away his latest album. Prince has actually been on the cutting edge of new music business and distribution models for many years, so this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. What’s interesting, is that he’s actually linking two troubled industries: recording and newspapers in a way that helps both. His latest CD will be available for free with a newspaper in the UK — and the newspaper is thrilled because it’s going to seriously increase circulation for that week. This is a perfectly reasonable idea: it adds value to the newspaper and makes it a more worthwhile purchase, while at the same time getting Prince a lot of attention and many more people hearing his latest works (which opens up many more opportunities for him to make more money through concerts, back catalog, merchandise, appearances, sponsorships, etc.).

However, the music retailers are freaking out that someone else might distribute music instead of them. Apparently they haven’t been paying much attention to all that online distribution of music that goes on these days and the fact that the business model of the traditional record shop is pretty much dead and buried. Instead, they blame Prince for actually getting more fans to hear his music. “It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,” claimed one. Another said: “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.” Of course, that’s the funniest one, since it’s pretty clear that Prince has already realized he’s better off without the record stores. Then there’s the head of HMV: “I think it would be absolutely nuts. I can’t believe the music industry would do it to itself. I simply can’t believe it would happen; it would be absolute madness.” Basically, what you’re reading here is an industry in complete and total denial over the fact that their service (delivering plastic discs to willing buyers) is a business model that’s increasingly obsolete.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Techdirt

My first sixty seconds of iPhone typing were spent typing the lyrics to Rump Shaker. While listening to Rump Shaker. It’s not bad when you hunt and peck by index, but it’s terrible by thumbs. A minute later I found a typing method that gave me nearly 100% accuracy. (Video to come.)

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

The crazy folks over at Think Secret took apart an iPhone. They’ve got 49 shots of the process, but we just wonder how many shots they’ll need to put the thing back together.

iPhone Takeapart [ThinkSecret]

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Fantastic Lad writes “The US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long ‘you’ can go without food or water, or how ‘you’ will respond to televised propaganda. Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child. ‘Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information”, according to a concept paper for the project. Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Last month, Microsoft went on the offensive in playing up its patent portfolio in an attempt to scare other companies into agreeing to licensing deals. This showed a complete flip-flop from Bill Gates’ own words from the early ’90s about how innovation is stifled by patents. It seemed to only underscore the idea that patents are used not to encourage innovation, but to protect legacy business models against innovation. Now, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel is trying to spin the patent story in a nice, fuzzy way to make us think that patents are all about sharing. This guy came to Microsoft after 20 years at IBM, the company that famously threatened employees at a young Sun by saying: “We have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?”

Anyway, his claim is that patents are fantastic because they let multiple companies share in the wealth. As he says: “We used to define competitive advantage as ‘I’ve got and you don’t.’ Or ‘You’ve got it, but I got better.’ Well, today it’s ‘You got it and I got it, but I make money when you use it.’” That would be nice, if true, but it ignores reality. The reality is that those patents aren’t for unique or novel ideas, but for broad and obvious ones, and when you bundle all of those ideas into a patent thicket it makes any additional innovation prohibitively expensive. It’s not, as he says “you got it and I got it, but I make money when you use it,” but, rather, “you may have figured out what consumers want, but you still owe me and 17 other patent holders money every time you use it, even if you figured it out entirely outside of our patents — and now the product is too expensive for any consumers to want to buy anyway.” That’s not quite as pithy, I’ll admit, but it’s a lot more accurate.

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Picture this. We’re heading in to buy our iPhones, and what do we see? A massive wall of Apple employees, clapping and cheering and offering high fives to all. It was a very surreal, and frankly scary experience. Remind us never, never to do that again, even if the Jesus Phone rises a second time.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

We were actually “surprised” that the video loaded as quickly as it did. We were in EDGE, so the quality was downgraded, but the experience was shockingly close to the Apple ad. Score one for the Jobs-man. Seriously, we were not expecting such an easy job.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

> > >
Here’s a little demo of the iPhone camera feature. Say, who are those two lovely guys on the first photo? Working hard, from the looks of it! The iPhone zooms and slides easy, and the pinch, after you figure out which way you’re going, is nice and smooth. The gyroscope is great for landscapes and cool to boot, and the iris effect is just a nice touch. The only real complaint is that sliding often leaves smudges, which is distracting when you’re trying to look at photos.
– Video by Nick McGlynn

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Go get our iPhone. Without waiting lines. But limited quantities.

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A few months back we wrote about a private investigation firm in the UK that had a separate “computer hacking” division called “Hackers Are Us.” It seemed like the sort of thing that you wouldn’t necessarily want to name a company that clearly was breaking computer fraud laws — but no one ever said criminals were smart. A court has now convicted the two guys who set up the service… and it turns out that both were actually on the police force at the time (though one was on leave for depression). Yes, “Hackers Are Us,” a private investigation firm that would illegally install keyloggers on anyone’s computer was run by two moonlighting cops. For future reference, though, if you’re setting up a business to do illegal stuff, it’s probably not a good idea to advertise it in your name. It may help for marketing purposes, initially, but sooner or later it seems likely to come back to bite you.

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After four drafts and extensive public review, the long-awaited revision of the GPL has finally been released. Version 3 of the GPL clarifies aspects of the previous version, aims to block patent covenants that could limit unencumbered redistribution, and protects users rights to modify GPL licensed software on embedded systems.

Read More…

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Ars Technica

OK, it’s just Day 1. Whether I turn out to be a Mossberg (typing is “a nonissue”) or a Levy (“Maybe I’m a spaz”) remains to be seen, but on my very first outing it took me a while just to type a simple text message. (1 down, 199 text messages to go!) Notice, though, that the system did correct my fumbly entries… twice.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

> > >
The gates finally opened and the ravenous masses spilled inside. Pacman was up first, of course, and the rest followed in his wake. Finally, after days of waiting, those who left their paying jobs will finally be able to spend a ton of money and walk out with their brand new iPhones. Hope Greg’s card went through!

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

mrspin writes “Media streaming boxes such as the AppleTV, XBox 360, PS3, and products from Netgear do a varying job of bridging the gap between the PC and television as well as, in some cases, delivering Internet content directly into the living room. But all are closed systems. The result of which is that users are left trying to hack these devices against the wishes of manufacturers or have to make-do with whatever official features are implemented. Bucking this trend, Neuros is taking a wholly different approach, and has open-sourced the firmware for it’s Neuros OSD media-center, meaning that anybody is free to write add-ons that extend the device’s functionality. This week the company announced that thanks to the open-source community, the device now lets users browser, search and view the entire YouTube catalog.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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We assume you tuned in at 6:15pm EST and caught us live—without sound. (Sorry gang, but this was beta to the max.) In case you didn’t, though, you can watch the camcorder version, with a rockin’ soundtrack.

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Thanks to Flickr, they’re probably all out of order, but here they are, the shots of the easy-as-billed iPhone activation, minus a few shots containing personal data. What I liked was that when I entered my iTunes account login, it pulled up all the necessary info, and didn’t even ask for credit cards or anything. You’re just in.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

>Thanks to Flickr, they’re probably all out of order, but here they are, the shots of the easy-as-billed iPhone activation, minus a few shots containing personal data. What I liked was that when I entered my iTunes account login, it pulled up all the necessary info, and didn’t even ask for credit cards or anything. You’re just in.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Haven’t activated it yet, but here are the first shots after our wild n’ crazy live unboxing. Stay tuned!!!

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Reader.mac.com is live now. This is a capture of what you get when you try to access the reader.mac.com address directly from an iPhone. And yes it’s an RSS application that handles your feeds’ URLs in iPhone’s Safari. Just enter the feed address and the app at reader.mac.com will handle the representation of the XML file.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

A new survey from the Pew Internet Project says that one third of US teenagers online have been “cyberbullied”. The kids say they’ve experienced at least one of the following: “having a private e-mail, IM or text messaging forwarded or posted where others could see it, the victim of an aggressive email, IM or text message, having a rumour spread about them online or having an embarrassing photograph posted online without permission.” Without wishing to downplay these incidents, which can certainly be very damaging, they don’t seem particularly different than the sort of bullying kids are subject to in school or elsewhere in the physical world. While there seems to be this desire to look at cyberbullying differently than offline bullying, the implication seems to be that technology is to blame, rather than the bullies. When permanent markers became widely available, allowing bullies to scrawl insults on their victims’ metal lockers with some permanence, where they singled out for scorn or special legislative treatment? Probably not. The point here is that bullying is a problem, no matter where it takes place, or what tools bullies use. Rather than focusing on cyberbullying, the focus should be on combating all forms of bullying, online or off.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Techdirt

In case it wasn’t clear how long the SF iPhone line is, check out this video where we got them to do the wave. How? By giving them T-Shirts. Stick around for the very end. You know why.

We’re getting pumped up, since it’s almost our turn to get in.

Video by Sarah Meyers and Richard Blakeley

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An anonymous reader writes “Remember how cool it was the first time you used MapQuest or Google Maps or Google Earth? You’ll feel like it’s the first time again, when you use interactive dragging of routes on Google Maps. Some of the folks from the development team have even whipped up a handy video to explain the concept.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Update 3: New video up!

Update 2: It’s done. Sorry about the lack of audio. We’ll try and update later with a better video.

Update: The stream’s up, but there’s no audio.

Stick around kiddies, because we’ve got a live unboxing of the iPhone here coming up in about 20 minutes, right at 6:15 PM Eastern. This is super, super beta stuff, so it may be kinda glitchy, but we’ve got our best trained monkeys on the job.

Live unboxing, here, on Gizmodo. iPhone. Be here.

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How does the Helio Ocean stack up to the iPhone? Helio shows you in table form. [Helio]

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What are these people angry at? No, it isn’t not being able to get an iPhone, it’s not being able to get into the Apple store when they closed it down at 2PM to prepare for the 6PM launch. Apparently either some people’s watches were a little off, or Apple closed the store down a little early, but they’re pissed at not being able to get into the store. That’s why we love SF—everyone always has things in perspective.

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The Apple online store is shuttered, and the iPhone launch is now officially underway. Will there be accessories for the iPhone at the Apple Store that we haven’t heard about yet? We’ll have to wait until 6 p.m. Pacific Time to find out. Apple Store

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An anonymous reader writes “Rumors said the release wouldn’t be until late Q4 but an August ship date is now promised for AMD’s quad-core chips. They’re only releasing up to 2.0 GHz processors at first, with the top speed devices coming out later in the year. ‘AMD’s Barcelona puts four cores on a single slice of silicon, an approach AMD calls native quad-core, and the company has argued that Barcelona will outperform the Xeon 5300. The only problem: that comparison soon will become obsolete. Intel’s second-generation quad-core server processors, Harpertown a server member of Intel’s Penryn family, will arrive this year, too, with the promise of better performance, lower power consumption and lower manufacturing costs by virtue of a manufacturing process with 45-nanometer features. AMD is only just now moving to a 65-nanometer process.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The patent imbroglio between Verizon and Vonage may prove to slowdown the advance of consumer VoIP, but for companies involved in the space, the real problem is basic economics. Since the cost of a phone call is rapidly dropping to zero, a voice pure play like Vonage has its work cut out for it if it wants to make money. While Vonage’s poor stock market performance has been a reflection of its woes, there have been rumors of troubles at #2 player SunRocket. Word now is that the company has canned a large number of its employees, including some top executives. It’s hard to know how a company in SunRocket’s position can turn things around, given how they’re positioned in the industry, particularly as the broadband operators are doing a good job of getting customers to sign up for voice services.

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We thought it was a little strange that the first person in the AT&T iPhone line didn’t know anything about the iPhone, but we’re glad to hear that it’s not widespread. You see, the people who camped at an Apple store-proper? They know about the iPhone. See as they nail just about all the questions we throw at them and win a T-Shirt in the process.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Here’s how to filter out all the iPhone posts from Gizmodo. [Gizmodo]

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Packer doesn’t have the money to pay for an iPhone, and they might not let him in with a sponsor to buy one. Stupid, sweaty Packer!

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As you might have caught on our live camera, the store is closed to set up for the demo. Here are some shots of the scene, as it stands.

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An advertising agent out of Brazil is the master craftsman behind these awesome miniature motorcycles. Assembled from watch parts and bits of other accessories such as eyeglasses, these motorcycles challenge the ideas of identity and representation, while putting us in the mood to BS about philosophy instead of just calling them “neat”. These motocycles aren’t for sale—which is all the better since my wife is convinced that despite their small stature, I’d manage to both ride one and be flattened by a car.

Design Page [via gearlog]

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>As Zero Hour approaches, the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in NYC is now being prepared for the debut of the first iPhones. Check it out. You can even see them sitting there on the tables.

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Second in line in SF’s Apple Store, Mark wants $1500, no less, for his spot in line. This is not an Apple Fan. choice quote: “Game recognize Game, Blood!”

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Here we have lnelyiphonefan30 wearing denim trousers and a limited-edition Gizmodo iPhone Launch T-Shirt, for a casually aggressive, yet elegantly cheerful look. See how that black cotton follows his fabulous form, and puckers up to his shapely yet firm moobs. Clad in his Giz garment, Lnelyiphonefan30 is a long, cool drink of style. Rowr!

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

SF Apple Stores shutting down in a few minutes to setup for Easter Phone. Catch it live. [iPhone SF Campout Live Video]

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kungfoofairy writes “Russia has laid claim to over one million square kilometers of the Artic. This announcement comes on the return of a scientific expedition into the region which found that the Lomonosov Ridge connects to Russia. The area is supposed to have a reserve of 10 billion tons of natural gas and oil. ‘A BBC map shows Russia’s proposal; this set of maps from The New York Times illustrates the area at stake and different ways it might be divided … The Russians have tried to advance their claim before, and were turned away by the United Nations in 2001. The new geological data is evidently meant to improve the odds for a second try. ‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Depending on how you feel about Apple, this iPhone cake may be better than the real thing. Sure, that icing looks like tar coated with airbrushed crude oil, but it’s actually 100% butter cream—better known as the best parts of butter and cream combined into an (ultimate?) frosting suitable for the (ultimate?) phone.

Also like the iPhone, there is absolutely no way we’d eat it.

And the same goes for this sad version we posted a while back.

iPhone Cake [via boingboing]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

>
How many Steve Jobses are there? According to this iPhone-waiting gang amusing all in line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City, Steve Jobs appears in many forms. As promised, here’s video of the parade of strangeness. They’re all members of Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), an NYC improv group that puts together quality comedy shows seven nights a week. Pick your fave shapeshifting Apple CEO, right here. Will the real Steve Jobs please … give away an iPhone?

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The moment of truth approaches on the East Coast and shadows lengthen all across America as the lines forming to get an iPhone lengthen at the same time. We’ve seen lazy-ass rentacops on Segways telling people they can’t sit, a Santa Monica newsbabe caked with makeup, and even the Philly mayor getting in on the line-waiting action. WTF is going to happen next? Send an iPhone line photo (one per person, please) to Giz to this email address: iphoneline@gizmodo.com. Then return here to see the gallery grow.

Don’t miss Gridskipper’s location-based iPhone line picmap

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>We’re at the AT&T store in SF and quizzing line campers on the iPhone. People who got the questions right get a free limited edition Gizmodo iPhone shirt. Those who don’t, get the whole internet laughing at him/her. It’s like camping out for a Star Wars movie and not knowing what a Lightsaber is.

Video by Sarah Meyers and Richard Blakeley

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MrErlenmeyer writes “Many injuries and diseases including heart attacks, stroke, and Parkinson’s cause healthy cells to kill themselves. A group of scientists at Washington University in Saint Louis believe they have a lead on how to stop apoptosis (unwanted cell suicide) and thus minimize the tissue damage that occurs as a result of these injuries. They designed drugs that halt the actions of executioner caspases, proteins that act as a molecular wrecking crew. Other scientists had found that a chemical called isatin could prevent tissue damage in rabbit hearts that were deprived of oxygen. This was the starting point for the team of researchers in Missouri. By making some changes to the molecule, they were able to develop an even more effective molecule. With some further refinement, this may lead to a new class of emergency medications.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Larrabee could well be an odd fusion of old and new, if a new rumor is to be believed. Think massively multicore… Pentium MMX?

Read More…

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Ars Technica

A group of Steve Jobs‘ just walked down the line and tried to get into the store to “check on their iPhones.” Apparently the Steves didn’t let security know about their visit ahead of time, as they were cruelly denied access at the door. Don’t they know who runs this company?! Stay tuned for video, coming very soon.

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A lot of you are obviously interested in the iPhone, but are you interested, or interested. Are you just satisfying your voyeuristic urges now, peeping at the weirdos in line, while you silently hold out for revision 2 or 3? Let us know. Your opinion matters to us. This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.

>

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

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>Allegedly, this is the dude who tried to snag the mic/iPhone out of a reporter’s hand live on Fox News. Looks like the cops got their man up here at the Midtown Apple store. When will you people learn: stupid publicity stunts don’t pay. Also, don’t return to the scene of the crime, you dumbass.

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Since it’s “iPhone Day,” and there have been a ton of stories about the iPhone that focus on the wrong thing (“oh look, shiny new toy!”), we thought it would be good to consider the more important impact that the iPhone will have on the mobile phone ecosystem — and who better to dive in and provide the analysis than our very own Techdirt Insight Community. As is standard with the diverse group of experts in the Techdirt Insight Community, we received fantastic, detailed, well thought-out analysis that goes a lot deeper than most of what’s coming out today. Here is the best analysis from the experts within the community:

• Vinaya.HS explains why it’s a mistake for other device makers to simply copy the iPhone, rather than leapfrogging it with new innovations (even though he knows that’s where they’re heading). He also plays up the benefit of separating the device from the operator (and ending operator subsidies).
• Joe Hunkins explains the two likely strategies that other device makers will follow: trying to catch up and surpass the iPhone’s high points, but at a cheaper price point, or giving up on competing and focusing on totally different markets (such as low-end users).
• Derek Kerton has an exceptionally detailed analysis on how the iPhone will end up benefiting everyone — even competitors and customers who choose not to buy an iPhone.
• Tim Marman focuses on how this could set off a change in distribution methods for mobile phones, as Apple proves that it’s possible to do things in a very different way.
• Rafe Blandford highlights the limitations of the iPhone and suggests there’s more to learn in how Apple went about marketing the device.
• Steve Litchfield points to the key ease of use features of the iPhone, where simplicity trumps feature creep — noting how difficult it will be for others to not fall victim to the allure of piling on additional confusing features.

There’s plenty to chew on here, from a variety of different perspectives — so for those of you hoping to dig in and understand what changes the iPhone will unleash on the market, we hope this is a good starting point. If you would like to get further analysis from these experts, along with other experts within the Techdirt Insight Community, please let us know.

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The Wi-Fi Alliance has passed their first two draft 2.0 applicants in the never-ending race to full 802.11n certification. The D-Link Xtreme N Router and Xtreme N Notebook Adapter both passed the Alliance’s testing, and now tower over their wireless kingdom, mocking all of the 1.0-certified brethren with full 2.0 certification. And 2.0 matters to you because it’s guaranteed compatible with the final draft.

Don’t expect the Alliance to get their act together with that final draft until sometime around 2008 or even 2009. Still, if you want your current 802.11n setup to be compatible with the future of Wi-Fi, these D-Link products are the best guarantees on the market until more certified 2.0 products are announced.

Press Release [PRnewswire]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

AMD announces Barcelona CPUs ship date in August. [Inquirer]

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